For several decades, the Il-62 served as plane number 1, transporting top officials of the state: from Brezhnev to Yeltsin. It stopped being the president’s plane only in 1995, when the Il-96 came to replace it.
By the early 1990s, the four-engine narrow-body long-haul liner became obsolete, the kerosene consumption for the carriage of one passenger turned out to be too high and the operation of the Il-62 became unprofitable.
The massive write-off and decommissioning of the IL-62 began in the second half of the 1990s. In 2005, the Il-62 was abandoned by the Aeroflot air company, once its largest operator. At the end of 2008, due to the crisis state of a number of airlines, the use of aircraft of this type for regular passenger air transportation in Russia ceased.
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Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
